FRIENDS wrote individual letters to the country's premiers, stating that provinces would receive more than $500-million in new revenue if proposed changes were made to what they see as a flaw in the Income Tax Act.

FRIENDS has reached out to Canada's Premiers appealing for them to urge Ottawa to close the tax loophole that encourages Canadian advertisers to spend on foreign online platforms, 80% of which ($4.4 billion per year) travels down a tax-free express lane straight to Google and Facebook in the US.

A website to help children understand the news, a mobile platform that provides newsrooms with better access to eyewitness videos, and an online platform for distributing newscasts on voice-activated devices were among the ideas-in-progress at the recent launch of the Digital News Innovation Challenge.

This full-page ad, supported by hundreds of Canadians, was placed in "Canada's Politics and Government Newspaper".

RELATED: Jan 26, 2017 — Publication — The Deductibility of Foreign Internet AdvertisingThe thesis of this paper is that advertising purchased on foreign internet-delivered media that act as broadcast and newspaper services should not continue to be deemed a deductible expense under the Canadian Income TaxAct (ITA).

Columnist says Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto’s administration has spent hundreds of millions of dollars a year in government money on advertising, creating what many Mexican media owners, executives and journalists call a presidential branding juggernaut capable of suppressing investigative articles, directing front pages and intimidating newsrooms that challenge it.

Aboriginal Peoples Television Network and the Canadian Association of Journalists are pleased to announce a new award to recognize exemplary journalism that educates and informs Canadians about Indigenous experiences.

FRIENDS spokesperson says that as alarm bells ring across the country about the troubled state of Canadian media and local news, policy-makers have overlooked a surprisingly obvious and accessible fix.

Columnist says the federal government’s stubbornness not to make Canadians pay the GST on their Netflix subscription is hindering any progress on the much greater problem of GST collection by foreign digital service companies.

FRIENDS of Canadian Broadcasting has given Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly’s long-awaited Creative Canada Policy Framework an overall barely passing grade of C-. The core challenge the policy failed to address is the crisis facing local media in Canada as a result of the exponential growth of internet advertising – which is siphoning revenue from Canadian media to foreign internet giants.